October 2009

Justice Agency Resists Music Merger

A proposed merger that would create a powerhouse in the music business is facing stiff resistance from the Justice Department, and will require major concessions, according to several people familiar with the situation. Negotiations are continuing between Justice Department officials and executives of Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. and Live Nation Inc., and no final decision has been reached. But department officials have let it be known that there are elements of the proposed merger that could prompt them to sue to block it, said one person familiar with the situation. The ticketing giant and the world's largest concert promoter "now sense they need to make some serious concessions," and are worried the Justice Department will seek to block their deal, this person said. The merger, formally proposed in February, is the first high-profile combination to come up for antitrust review during the Obama administration, and it is attracting attention far beyond the confines of the music business. Under President George W. Bush, the Justice Department rarely blocked mergers based on antitrust concerns, but the Obama administration has signaled it will take a tougher approach. The Ticketmaster-Live Nation deal is widely regarded as a bellwether of the department's attitude toward such potential deals as Comcast Corp.'s proposal to take a majority stake in General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal. Like the proposed Ticketmaster-Live Nation alliance, a Comcast-NBC deal would represent "vertical integration," in which several links in the chain between producer and consumer are controlled by a single entity.

Radio Should Pay for Playing Music, Senate Panel Says

Radio station owners such as CBS Corp. would have to pay new fees to play music on the air under legislation approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee over opposition from broadcasters. The measure, approved in a voice vote, would establish a royalty to be split between recording artists and labels. Satellite and Internet radio already pay such fees. Similar legislation passed the House Judiciary Committee in May. Music labels such as Warner Music Group Corp.,Vivendi SA, and Sony Music Entertainment say their artists deserve to be compensated for the value their songs bring to radio stations. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat who heads the Judiciary Committee, said the bill would end a "glaring inequity."

Washington Technorati Toast Public Knowledge and Its IP3 Awards

Public Knowledge's sixth annual "IP3 Awards" - which celebrates information policy, intellectual property, and Internet protocol - drew a crowd of Washington's technorati to the Sewell-Belmont House in Washington on Thursday evening. Among the guests dropping by the event included White House science and technology policy aide Susan Crawford, the Obama administration's designee to be intellectual property czar Victoria Espinel, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, Office of Science and Technology Policy chief of staff Jim Kohlenberger, NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling, and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn recommitted her organization to the principles of Net neutrality and to "balance" in the copyright wars. Awardees included: 1) Karen Jackson, the Deputy Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, 2) Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, 3) Sascha Meinrath, the creator of the Open Technology Initiative at the New America Foundation, and 4) Sarah Deutsch, associate general counsel of Verizon Communications.

Israel Protests Turkish TV Series About Palestine

An Israeli Foreign Ministry official rebuked Turkey's acting ambassador on Thursday over a Turkish television series that, among other things, appears to depict an Israeli soldier murdering a Palestinian child. Naor Gilon, deputy director for the Foreign Ministry's Western Europe desk, said he had told the Turkish envoy, Ceylan Ozen, that the television series was "incitement" that could set off attacks against Jews visiting Turkey. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel later talked about his own concerns about the series and what it said about bilateral relations. The program's producer, Selcuk Cobanoglu, told Ynet, an Israeli news Web site, that the characters in his series did not represent Israelis. Cobanoglu acknowledged that the uniforms looked similar to Israeli uniforms. But he also said: "The Turkish and American militaries have uniforms like that as well. We love the people in Israel. We love the Israelis."

Are telephone companies giving up on broadband stimulus?

Telecom access equipment vendor Calix says its clients represent 40% of tier 2 and tier 3 US telecom providers. One quarter of those customers applied for broadband stimulus funding.

Those who chose not to apply fall into four categories: 1) Those who did not qualify based on the definitions set forth by grant program administrators, 2) Those who feared the strings attached to the funds, 3) Those who couldn't wait for competitive reasons, and 4) Those who are already executing on all cylinders and saw the stimulus as a distraction.

For the first two groups, many are still waiting on the fence to see how dramatically the rules change in the next round of funding - this includes some very large incumbent local telephone companies. For the service providers in the third and fourth groups, they continue to charge ahead with broadband expansion and upgrade plans, and in some cases have hastened their expansion and upgrade plans to counteract potential stimulus-funded incursions into their service territories.

T-Mobile Executive Calls for More Spectrum for Smaller Competitors

A Q&A with Neville Ray, T-Mobile's senior vice president of engineering and operations. He thinks the key to competition isn't Network Neutrality rules but more spectrum. Specifically, he is pushing regulators to auction radio airwaves in the AWS band where T-Mobile and smaller carriers are already building out networks for wireless broadband services. T-Mobile is the fourth-largest carrier of wireless services in the nation, and despite the huge leaps in subscriber growth by the nation's two largest carriers - Verizon Wireless and AT&T, he describes the wireless market as "hyper-competitive." Ray is in Washington (DC) this week to meet with Federal Communications Commission commissioners and attend the 3G Americas conference in town this week, a group that he chairs. And no, he didn't comment on whether T-Mobile is interested in buying Sprint Nextel.

Public Safety Interoperable Communications Approved by Senate

On Thursday, the Senate approved a bill, S. 1694, that extends the Public Safety Interoperable Communications (PSIC) grant program established under the Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 to remain available through fiscal year 2012. The PSIC grant program provides funding for state projects that arm public safety personnel with interoperable communications equipment and the necessary training for system users. "The PSIC grant program extension is important public safety communications legislation, and I am extremely pleased to see it pass the Senate," said Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, Chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. "Interoperable communications resources help first responders keep Americans out of harm's way and protect the brave emergency response personnel who put their lives on the line. I am proud to say that we will continue our strong commitment to public safety and providing resources for those who do all they can to keep us safe." "This legislation will provide an important boost to America's first responders by allowing them access to needed emergency communications funds," said Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX). "In an emergency or crisis, it is vital that our public safety personnel be able to communicate with each other. Extending this grant program will give first responders across the country additional time to deploy new interoperable communications systems."

Hathaway opens up about her decision to leave White House

An interview with former White House advisor Melissa Hathaway. The former acting senior director for cybersecurity in the White House says the President not only gets the importance of hardening federal and commercial networks, but laid out priorities for the government to initially focus on. "There were certain priorities he wanted us to kick off first, beginning with the dialogue with the American people. Second was how to operationalize public and private partnerships focusing on financial services and energy sectors. The President understood the severity of the situation and what he wanted to be done for the country."

Ad Group Calls FTC Blog Rules 'Dubious'

The Interactive Advertising Bureau on Thursday called on the Federal Trade Commission withdraw recently issued enforcement guidance regarding the opinions and commentary of bloggers online marketers and others, saying the rules unfairly and unconstitutionally impose penalties on online media for practices in which offline media have engaged for decades. In an open letter to FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, IAB President Randall Rothenberg called the agency's distinction between offline media and online media, "constitutionally dubious."

Freshman Rep Wants Bills Online In 24 Hrs

Rep Lynn Jenkins (R-Kansas) introduced a resolution to change House rules and require committees to post the actual text of adopted bills and amendments online within 24 hours. She argued in a press release that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pledge for an open and transparent Congress has fallen short and lawmakers have failed to require transparency for one of the most powerful components of Congress -- congressional committees. "The federal government functions best when it governs in the light of day," she said.

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